Congress concerned over online fraud of Rs 16 crore of AMC money from UCO bank and Rs 2.5 crore from Tripura Gramin Bank (TGB)

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, November 18, 2025

Stung by terrible reverses in the just-concluded Bihar assembly elections the Congress high command seems to have changed tack , choosing to attack the BJP governments in states and Centre for increasing online frauds of precious public money. In a statement issued today with inputs presumably provided by the party high command, the state Congress spokesperson Prabir Chakraborty has asked people to ponder over the desirability of keeping the BJP governments in states and Centre.

Turning to Tripura the statement cited the recent fraud of a whopping Rs 16 crore funds of Agartala Municipal Corporation from the United Commercial Bank and the pilferage of Rs 2.5 crores from the Tripura Gramin Bank (TGB). “It is quite visible that neither the state government nor the Centre is showing any goodwill to recover the lost amounts ; the nominal investigations in this regard will lead nowhere ; how this precious public fund meant for pension , salary or other purpose is being stolen is a matter of deep concern ; there is no attempt to recover the money and it is natural because the BJP governments are now dependent on these fraudsters and cheats” said Prabir Chakraborty in his statement. He also quoted the union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman as stating in Loksabha during the last monsoon session that Rs 4245 had been taken away by the online fraudsters whereas in the year 2022-2023 an amount of Rs 2553 crores had been taken away by online frauds. He urged upon the people to beware of the governments in states and Centre run by the BJP and reflect on whether these governments can be kept in power.

However, possibly in compliance with the brain-dead line of the high command Prabir took a dig at the demonetization executed by Modi that had been welcomed by people all over India. He conveniently forgot that the move had freed the Indian economy greatly from the baneful impact of black money and the enthusiasm of people was such that even retired bank employees had returned to their work places to help colleagues deal with the additional work load. There were some deaths but these were collateral damage as only vey old people fell sick while standing in queues. “It is pointless for them to raise questions over the issue because the accumulated black money could never return to banks for fear of legal action and were destroyed by owners ; such demonetization had been done by former prime minister Morarji Deshai also in 1977-1978 but that was for higher denomination notes and had no beneficial effect ; Indira Gandhi had formed a commission headed by retired chief justice Kailas Nath Wanchoo in 1970 but did not have the guts to implement the recommendation for demonetizing Rs 100.00 denomination notes to curb black money for fear of fall in donations for Congress for elections from industrialists” said a senior expert. He said that the Congress criticism of UPI system of payment is uninformed and useless because this system in India is appreciated by advanced European countries also . “Yes there are loopholes in any technology driven system and they must be plugged but taking a stand against the entire UPI system is stupidity ; it yields more benefits to people than it causes harms ; Congress can oppose anything political but should not raise issues against popular and beneficial measures for public” said the senior expert.

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